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Stern ’97 Honored by American Historical Association for British Book Project

Philip Stern ’97, assistant professor of history at Duke University, received the 2011 Morris D. Forkosch Prize for the best book in the field of British, British Imperial, or British Commonwealth history since 1485.

The prize, awarded by the American Historical Association, recognizes Stern’s The Company-State: Corporate Sovereignty and the Early Modern Foundations of the British Empire in India (Oxford University Press, 2011). The prize committee calls Stern’s book a “sophisticated study of the East India Company …[that] challenges a long-established account of the chartered company as a trading venture that only belatedly became a territorial power” and lauds him for developing “original and exciting arguments on empire not only in India but around the early modern world.”

A history major at Wesleyan, Stern was a fellow in the Mellon Undergraduate Program and graduated with high honors. He earned his Ph.D. from Columbia University.